Nine years ago this week, we arrived in Israel with eight of our children (one was waiting at the airport to greet us), ages 2 – 18.
Coming with children above the age of ten isn’t recommended, due to the challenge in adjusting. And we had five children in that age range.
We made the decision to move very quickly in order to move as an intact family unit; if we waited any longer, we would leave older children beginning their independent adult lives behind. Our hope was that as our children married, they would choose to live in Israel and we could continue to stay connected in person.
On the anniversary of our aliyah flight we had a family barbeque. All three of our married children were there with their families. One has been with us for two weeks, one was here for a week; they both returned home to Jerusalem later that night. Another married child arrived from Jerusalem that night for a five day stay.
Ds18 managed to evade being in the photo but otherwise we had everyone except for dd19 together.
Our nineteen year old daughter missed it (she left a few days ago) but otherwise, everyone was here. When I got on the plane nine years ago, this was the vision of what we wanted to have – meaningful connection with each of our children between us and our children, and them with one another, as their personal lives expanded outside the immediate sphere of our family.
My husband and I switched places as the photographer so here he is with everyone. 🙂
Moving to a new country with a new language and culture is going to be a challenge no matter what. And there were a lot of big bumps in the road for us in the early years.
Due to events in the US, a lot of people more people than usual are considering aliyah. I know it’s scary to think of starting over, it’s hard to leave the familiar. Where will you live, will there be social and educational supports for your family, and how will you make a living?
Those are real issues that need to be addressed. And there’s probably going to be a good dose of hard in the adjustment.
But hard doesn’t last forever. And even in the midst of the hardest of the hard, none of us regretted making the move to Israel.
I’m fortunate that when I believe in something, I can see the potential difficulties but assume we’ll make it work. (That’s also the same thinking that allowed us to make a move to a different part of the country – twice! – in the last nine years.) And truly, it always works out for us.
If your heart is calling you to move to Israel, don’t let your fears get in your way. You definitely need a plan. And even more, you need a reason to move, a vision of what you want to have because this is what will keep you going when things are bumpy. And finally, you need to believe you can and will succeed.
From the time that we shared our plan to move to northern Israel, almost every single person has asked, “What about schools/special ed services?”
Great question. And my not so great answer is, I really don’t know. I do know that there are no options where I live in Yavneel itself.
As far as high school goes, there is a very small learning program locally that we hoped would be a good option for ds14 and allow him to live at home, being that I have a strong preference not to send to a dorm. However, it’s not going to continue next year and even if it would, it wouldn’t meet his needs for an extended period. (It’s been great for this in-between time, though, and I’m very grateful it’s here.)
And that’s why just three weeks ago, we began the search for a suitable high school for ds. However, it’s not ideal to embark on this search long after registration has closed and the roster is full, to put it mildly.
After several conversations with ds14, it became clear that he doesn’t want to board with a family, and that knocked off the top option (it doesn’t have a dorm).
The head of the program locally asked someone who knows all the school options to come and meet him to see what he thought would be a match for him. Interestingly, he suggested the yeshiva in Karmiel – the same one that we chose not to send to, even when living in Karmiel!
When I heard this option, I had a strong knee jerk reaction to say, ‘Absolutely not!!!’ but it’s a sign of maturity to consider things with new eyes, right? It’s an excellent yeshiva with a nice student body (two of the students are still good friends of his), we know a number of the families that send there, it has the sense of being somewhat familiar because it’s located in the area we used to live in (it eases the transition when living away from home), there is less travel time than the other options, and it’s affordable.
These were all positives and I was grateful when ds had his interview and was accepted.
Then he went to visit the school.
I assumed this would be where he would go since he had a good feeling about it, and despite my personal preference for a broader academic/social focus, what matters most to me is that it’s a good fit for my son.
However, he came home very clear that he wouldn’t go there. I asked him for reasons and he responded, ‘You always tell me to listen to my intuition. And I’m telling you I don’t want to go there, I don’t know why exactly.”
I told him that while it’s enough for me, it’s helpful for all of us to know what he doesn’t want to help us hone in on what he does want. (He did go on to share some things that didn’t fit for what he wanted.)
We then contacted the principal of the high school that ds21 attended. This is a school with a strong academic program for Judaic and secular studies. Ds21 smoothed the path for us by being in touch with him directly a couple of weeks before and telling him about his brother.
When my older son attended this school, he had something like twelve kids in his class. There are now two classes of 25 for the incoming freshman class, which is their full capacity. Registration has been closed for months.
However, we were now approaching them as the parents of a student who was a remarkable asset to their yeshiva – when my husband took ds for an interview, they told him that ds21 was a ‘foundation stone’ of the yeshiva. (When ds21 spoke at his graduation as his class representative, he was introduced with the statement: ‘We can’t overstate how much this student has done for this school’.)
This was a really good experience for us. We weren’t begging someone to accept our son, or dealing with an administration acting as if they would be doing a big favor for us by taking our son. They told us that although they were at maximum capacity, they were going to accept ds14 anyway.
Ds14 had a really good feeling after visiting. When he was introduced to another staff member as ‘B’s younger brother’ and then asked if he minded being referred to as such, he said, no, he didn’t mind. ‘But’, he added, ‘by the time I graduate, people are going to be referring to him as my older brother!’ I love that he felt confident and comfortable enough to say that.
We’re all really glad to have wrapped up the search for a school, and ds14 is feeling much more relaxed knowing where he’ll be going in a few weeks. (If school opens – which is very much not a given!)
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I want to share a little more about my dilemma in choosing a school. Why didn’t I go right to the second school?
I always have this conflict about appreciating a conservative religious program and not wanting the pressure that usually comes along with it. I feel it’s important that kids have room to be without a long list of expectations on them. Not because any of my kids would have a problem with the rules, but because whenever there are strong demands, there is the potential to create strong resistance and kickback. (This is a hugely significant consideration for us.) I think it’s asking for problems to put your child in a very small box without much room to maneuver.
This is my main issue with mainstream charedi yeshivas at the high school level, and my choice has always been to send to a more open school, where our kids end up being the stronger ones religiously. There is a danger is this, too, that a child will be pulled down by their peers.
The second yeshiva has a student body that is coming from homes where parents want a dual curriculum, like us. This is the norm in the US and why we are very comfortable with it. I very much appreciate the strong education they provide that allows students to compete with anyone in the country when they graduate. But here it’s not the norm in charedi society, and most charedi parents would consider a program like this a religious compromise.
Note: the school has a charedi staff and orientation. Most of the students are coming from what I would call ‘open charedi’ homes. It’s not for kids who are struggling religiously. When they graduate, many of the students go on to strong mainstream charedi yeshivas (some go on to other options). However, the broader academic approach means the student body has more technology use and exposure to things that would be less common in the mainstream charedi world.
Although the school is also much more expensive than the first option (four times the price!), our main concern was the potential social influences. This is a choice we make very carefully every single time, after a great deal of thought and discussion about the child, his personality and what will best support him.
I told a friend in the US that we’re about to start renovating our kitchen, and she said, ” You’re always redoing kitchens. Maybe next time you move, buy a place with a renovated kitchen!”
We did our first DIY kitchen renovation thirteen years ago; the last three took place in the last six years. And here I go again.
So why not buy a house with a renovated kitchen? Very simply, because I’m able to buy more home for my money by being willing to do my own upgrades.
For my past kitchens, I’ve purchased used kitchens and then customized them to my space. It requires being able to visualize and think out of the box, and I’m good at that.
This kitchen has been a lot more challenging to plan than any of the others. The way space is allotted here is unusual, and I’ve spent ages thinking and rethinking and rethinking again. Now that I’ve bought the kitchen (yep, used once again!!) and the various cabinets are sitting in front of me (the configuration is different than the detailed measurements I was given and had planned for already), I’m reworking out the details yet again!
The old kitchen was pulled out two days ago, and it was nice to to get it out. It was only seven years old but looked really dilapidated, and when we took it out, some of it was moldy and rotted.
I had originally planned to replace the kitchen before moving in, but when we suddenly moved a few months early, that plan changed. It ended up much better that I lived in this space for a while because it completely changed my idea of how to renovate.
It’s never fun taking out a kitchen because nothing is where it belongs and instead it’s piled up all over, and it makes it hard to prepare meals. But we’ve got a better workable temporary setup than ever before – we put a piece of granite from the used kitchen that I bought on top of the cabinets that will be the island, and that gives us a workspace.
The sink we’re using is in the bathroom, and here’s my workaround – I’ve placed a dish drainer set into the laundry hamper, so that I can stand at the sink and put the dishes in the drainer without having to bend down to the floor. Simple but it works and it makes me happy to find a way to make the renovation process less stressful!
Quite small but it gets the job done.
So much easier than how I washed dishes last time we did the kitchen, sitting on the edge of the bathtub/ on my knees leaning over the tub.
If you’re wondering about specifics of putting in a kitchen like this, feel free to ask! Someone on a FB group for those doing building projects/renovations in Israel asked about putting in a used kitchen a couple of years ago, and out of thousands of members, I was the only one to respond. This is my fourth kitchen here in Israel and I have a good sense of what’s involved in terms of cost and getting outside help.
My daughter, her husband and our granddaughter will be coming to visit for a week, arriving Thursday night. (And next week another of our couples, is arriving for an extended visit and the week after the third family arrives!:)) I’m very much hoping to have the countertops and sinks put in by Friday – it would be so nice to go into Shabbos with a new kitchen!
Do you read my blog and wonder why I’m not talking about the elephant in the room – the virus that has taken over the news, personal conversations and social media feeds?
It’s not because I don’t have opinions. Very simply, it’s because I choose to focus on things that make me feel good.
In the last few months, every time I write a post I wonder very briefly if I seem oblivious to the goings-on in the world.
But I know what makes me feel good and it’s not the current world events, so I go on to write about my garden, or my ducks or something else that brings me joy in some way or other.
I try to do this throughout my day – to choose thoughts that are positive and uplifting. I’m a product of the broader culture in which looking for the good is naive and looking at what is wrong is being ‘realistic’. But many years of writing gratitude lists, sharing gratitude as a family nightly around the dinner table and looking for the good have made an impact on me. I’ve become less oriented towards complaining and focusing on all that is wrong.
I know that what I focus on will increase, and I find it valuable to consciously consider what I want to increase in my life.
This is a spiritual exercise every day, and in recent months it’s gotten quite a workout. Everywhere I go, everyone I interact with – it seems there’s just one topic that people want to discuss. And I’m not interested. I just don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it
I want to be happy. I want to find joy in my daily life. I want to feel safe in the world.
Is that walking through the world with blinders on? No. I see what is happening. I’m very, very aware.
And it’s because I’m aware that I choose to focus on things that feel good.
About ten weeks ago, we became the owners of three Pekin ducks, two females and one male!
Watching the ducks inside their coop after they arrived. My entire yard was filled with 3 – 5 foot weeds when we moved here, and I thought the ducks would assist me in getting rid of them. I was wrong, but there are other benefits!
We had visions of fresh eggs and baby chicks, and were delighted that despite being told it would likely take 2 – 4 weeks for them to settle in and start laying again, one of them began laying on the third day. It was so exciting to see that first egg there!
The first egg!
Despite being very happy in their new surroundings, one of the females died just nine days later. She had come to us with a cut next to her eye that we understood from the seller was mostly healed, but it became infected and though we put antibiotic cream on it, it was too little, too late.
My son told me he didn’t think she was feeling well – less than a half hour later I found her laying beak down in the coop, dead.
I knew raising animals would mean encountering the life and death cycle close up, but I wasn’t expecting it so soon.
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Prior to this, we had begun to gather the eggs and set them aside, hoping we could incubate them. We were fortunate to have a neighbor who raises birds who had some room left in his incubator, and agreed to add our seven eggs to his batch. Duck eggs have a four week incubation period and we waited eagerly for the hatch.
The person who had the incubator told the boys after a couple of weeks that it looked like only five of our eggs would hatch. That sounded like a good number, though!
However, we had a massive unseasonal heatwave, and there was an incubator failure as a result. Out of all of those eggs, just one adorable little duckling hatched.
Ds14 with Pineapple, a few hours old
She was dubbed Pineapple, and spent her first day being held non-stop, her first night sleeping snuggled on ds14, and spent the next day once again mostly being held – she was very content.
The second night we put her in her box lined with straw inside the bedroom, not knowing that even though it was so warm she still needed a heat lamp. (When we hatched ducklings in the US we didn’t use a heat lamp and they all survived, both times – and the weather was much cooler than here.)
They found her dead in the morning. It was very, very sad.
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While we were waiting for the duck eggs to hatch, my twelve year old son began asking me if he could buy quail to raise. The seller of the ducks had some other fowl, among them quail, and when we were there for the ducks we chatted about them. This son had been with me and the conversation he listened to ignited an interest.
I told him he had to build a coop for them before we could get any. He had already built the coop for the ducks with ds14, and so he began collecting scrap wood and materials.
Once the coop was built, off we went last week to buy some quail. He had money for two females and a male, but the seller told him he needed a higher ratio of females to males. When the seller heard about our duck’s untimely demise, he said he would give us the quail that my son was interested in as compensation. My son was very excited about to get five females and one male!
The quail have been doing really well. They’re fun to watch, and surprised us by starting to lay eggs just a week after we got them, when they were only six weeks old. Ds12 started collecting eggs to incubate.
(After he did this, he made the eggs available for us to eat – the last couple of Shabbosim, he boiled a bunch of them and we enjoyed the tiny delicacies for shalosh seudos.)
He began learning about heat lamps and buying materials to build his own warmer for when his eggs hatched.
Before long, the first egg hatched! So exciting! But the tiny chick had a leg injury and couldn’t stand or sit upright.
Ds12 was very anxious about this, and began building a special seat that would keep the chick upright and allow him to eat and drink without needing to move. He put the chick in the special warmer that night to make sure it would stay warm.
In the morning, it was dead.
The next day the second egg hatched. This one was totally healthy and looked great. Ds was so much more relaxed and enjoyed this baby chick. He taught it to eat and drink, held it throughout the day and put it in the warmer at night.
Warmer, set up and wired by ds12
He told me this quail was going to make it because it was doing so well.
A day or two later, his older brother peeked in the warmer and noticed it wasn’t looking good. Ds12 rushed to take it out, and stroked it repeatedly, dipping its beak in water and food.
Ds holding the baby quail next to the adult female hoping it would give it security and connection.
It was looking stronger – and then moments later died in his hand.
He was devastated and began sobbing.
There have definitely been some lessons along the way, and I’m not going to wax poetic about them. It’s been hard.
As a parent, my role has been to support his interest, then hold space for the feelings of overwhelm, discouragement and sadness that have come up. After the second chick died in his hands, he told me, crying, that he wasn’t going to raise any more birds if they were all going to die.
I didn’t tell him it would all be okay or attempt to convince him of why it wasn’t a big deal. It was a very big deal for him. As a parent, it’s hard to see your child’s pain and you want to take it away. It comes from such a good place in us! But it invalidates a child’s experience to do that. Believe me, I so much wanted to reassure and soothe him.
Then the next two quail eggs hatched. Again, one had a leg injury and one was healthy. After the first quail chick died, I read about how to help a baby quail do physical therapy and told ds about it, so he went out to find a cup that would be the right size for this. Even though the cup he bought wasn’t quite the right size, the chick is walking around much better.
And this time, the two little chicks have not only warmth, light, food, water and conscientious care, but they have each other, and that makes a huge difference. (He thinks the second chick died of loneliness.) They are now six days old and both are doing well. Whew!
(Edited to add: a few days after I wrote this, he left the chicks in the care of his brother for two days when he went to Jerusalem to do bar mitzva shopping. On the first afternoon he was gone, one of the chicks died. When he got home he bought a week old chicken chick to keep his quail chick company so he wouldn’t be lonely.
A few days later, our dog got into the warmer – my son had closed the door to the room they were in but it hadn’t clicked shut. He found the chicken chick injured on the floor and the quail chick gone. We searched everywhere, and then I found it dead on the floor in a different room. I went to get my husband to give some emotional support to my son, who was very emotional. When I got upstairs again, my son told me in relief that the chick was alive but must have fainted from fright. The saga continues….)
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Last week we got two more female ducks. I did this to improve the plight of the lone remaining female duck, who has the unenviable role of being the sole object of the male’s amorous attention. I’ve been looking to buy mature female Pekins, but without success. I spoke to someone who raises Pekins who suggested getting female muscovies to solve the problem, which are easy to find and a lot cheaper.
The very next day my boys went to pick out a couple from someone local who sells them. So easy. And kind of ironic, since I was adamant I didn’t want muscovies! They have different benefits than the Pekins, which after a couple of months of having ducks, now seem more significant. (A big one: muscovies incubate their own eggs.)
Ds11 has been telling me that he wants to raise some kind of animal (he asked about having a goat, to which I said absolutely not! – but hey, it’s good he felt he could ask!). Since via the unexpected refund for the first duck I ended up funding the quail for ds12, I offered these to ds11. He was quite pleased.
As for why I got ducks to start with, I’ll have to write another post about that. But a nice perk is starting my day sitting outside, watching them. So relaxing!
Recently we had our final meeting with our foster care social worker. She was the one who did our intake application and interviews, she was there when the transfer was made from the birth parents to us, and she’s come monthly for the last three and a half years for home visits.
Now that we’ve moved to a different part of the country, our file will be moved to a different organization that has jurisdiction locally. Hence the goodbye.
We took care of the formalities, and then she told me how much she appreciated working with us. She said,”Even though there have been times we’ve had strong disagreements (yes, when I found myself facing policies that I believed were harmful for my child!), I appreciate that you’ve always been willing to listen to me and consider my view, and that we’ve been able to talk about it.
She continued: “On a personal note, I have a lot to learn from you as a mother. Leadership Parenting, that’s what your approach is, right? I see that all the time, in the way you say ‘yes’ to your children and how you say ‘no’, really I see it in many different things you do. I can learn a lot from you.”
Picture taken by the social worker
Coming from someone who has been in my house regularly for years and has seen a lot of situations, her feedback was significant and appreciated.
Then there was two days later, when I was so, so, so frustrated with my seven year old and responded very disappointingly. I can’t even remember now what triggered it – it wasn’t something major – it was facing the kind of thing that I deal with every day.
A few months ago I went to a workshop on setting boundaries for kids with special needs. The workshop leader was excellent, but I felt very bothered listening and at the end I spoke up. “I’ve been using all these techniques for years – I’ve raised all my children like this. And it’s important to be clear that this approach doesn’t make it easy to parent a child with special needs – sometimes it just makes it possible to cope. Because I use these all day, every day, and sometimes it is just really hard. I think it’s important to be clear that if it’s hard doesn’t mean someone is doing something wrong.”
Yirmi (who is an awesome kid who happens to have Trisomy 21) will be eight in a week. When I think of that birthday I have to take some deep breaths and remind myself to let go of my idea of when things should happen, and also remind myself that as a parent, I’m enough.
I think that many (all??) parents struggle with these split emotions of sometimes doing great as a parent, and then falling on your face and feeling like a complete failure – sometimes within minutes. And you know what? There’s no contradiction to being a fantastic parent a lot of the time and struggling mightily at other times.
It’s the reality of parenting.
When I’m feeling discouraged and inadequate as a parent, I remind myself that I’m doing my best in every moment. We all are. Sometimes my best looks impressive and sometimes it really doesn’t look good at all, but with the good and with the not so good…..I’m enough.
This morning my husband and I took our kids to the Kineret (Sea of Galilee) for an early morning outing. It was so lovely. The sky, the air, the beautiful cranes swooping all around…glorious.
At one point, I looked at my husband, who smiled at me and said: “We’re living the dream.” I nodded back, with a deep feeling of appreciation.
What was he talking about?
Over the years we’ve talked about our vision for our lives a lot. Our personal ideal includes my husband working from home and being able to take the boys to synagogue with him, learning with them first thing in the day, and being able to have time for family outings. For years I’ve taken the kids on trips but my husband has usually been away at work. We’ve dreamed of much more integrated family time.
And now it’s happening.
Since moving three months ago, my husband now works from home three days a week, and works in Jerusalem the other two days. That means he’s home five days a week.
We’ve had corona restrictions in place that limited his ability to take the boys to shul (synagogue) until fairly recently. And now that piece, starting the day praying and learning together – something we’ve wanted for years! – is beginning to happen.
At dinner last night, I suggested we plan small outings that we can put into our regular schedule. We are blessed to live a very short drive from the Kineret (thank You, Hashem!!!), so we talked about going for just an hour. That would make it something we could easily integrate on a regular basis.
Two thumbs up – having fun!
This was our first time out as a family, and it showed us that it’s completely doable. My husband was able to start working by 10 am, and worked later in the day to offset the late start. We hope to do this once a week now!
Ds11
Sometimes we make our dreams and visions so big and complicated that they can’t happen. My experience is that by moving towards what I want and taking small steps in that direction, life keeps getting better and better.
I was upstairs on my porch when I heard loud yelling close by. I peered over my railing and saw a man screaming at my twelve year old son.
Now, you have to know that this son is a really, really good kid. Respectful, helpful, kind. What could someone be angry with him about?
This.
This is a path through agricultural fields – it’s meant to be used only by tractors for planting and harvesting but cars started using it as a shortcut. Yavneel is so small that this shortcut saves them literally about one minute of driving time. It’s bumpy and pitted, not something you’d want to drive on, but people sometimes do.
This morning my son was outside watching his two younger siblings, and the driver of a van coming through the fields from the opposite side encountered these rocks in the path and jumped out of his van. He began yelling; this is when I heard the shouting and came running.
I found my son in tears, moving the rocks aside and when I asked him what happened, he told me the guy screamed at him to clear the path. I told him to stop immediately and then spoke with the very agitated driver.
After a few minutes, he explained he was having a hard morning and apologized for getting so upset (he even tried to hug my son, who absolutely did not want to be touched by him). I told him I was sorry to hear that.
He then said, he’s been using this path for years every single morning and now is upset it’s been blocked. Now, I know this path hasn’t been in use for the last 2.5 months since it’s been blocked since before I moved here, but I also realized at some point it hadn’t been blocked up and he must have been using it before the corona quarantine.
I explained to him that it had been blocked for safety reasons because it’s not a road, and asked him if he would mind terribly to go around instead. I explained that children play here at the end of our block (which is more like a paved path than a street), that I have two young children with special needs and it is so much safer for them not to have cars using this as a shortcut. He quieted down and that’s when my neighbors heard what was happening and came over.
They both told him that this isn’t an official road and he shouldn’t be driving here.
As much as I appreciated the neighborly support and everything they said was said without yelling, this triggered him back into arguing to protect his ego. His demeanor shifted back to yelling. He said angrily, “She (meaning me) asked me nicely and I would stop using this path as a kindness to her, but now you’re telling me I’m not allowed to use this and you’re wrong.”
‘I’m right, you’re wrong.’ This never leads to anything productive. People just get increasingly entrenched in their positions.
To discuss points of disagreement with others, we must 1) be willing to see things through their eyes and 2) recognize how easily what we say can be perceived as a personal attack. It’s not easy to see others with differing viewpoints as well-intended, but there’s no productive conversation possible if you assume the other person is selfish, self-centered, and out to hurt you or your rights.
In the end, I followed him back to his car and said, “You’re right, it’s not an official road but this path has been used by cars and you’re allowed to drive here also. I’m asking you as a personal favor for the safety of the local children if you would mind going around instead.” He agreed.
Yesterday I drove my seventeen year old son to the bus station. He returned to his yeshiva, this time as a dorming student. Today I’ll take my nineteen year old daughter to the bus station as she moves out and begins a new job in Jerusalem. My husband will be going back to the office in a couple of days. (My twenty-one year old son studies at a very large yeshiva which hasn’t yet reopened so he’s still home.)
It’s been two months with everyone home – my husband and eight of our children – and this time has been incredibly precious to me.
Even when everyone else in the family was home together, my husband was always working and missing out. Now he’s been working from home and has been with us throughout the day, something he and I have dreamed of. It’s literally our ideal life.
Though I’d have preferred to have my three year old at home, as a foster child that option wasn’t available. Thanks to this situation, he’s been home for the last two months and won’t have to go back to school until the beginning of the school year. That’s a six month long reprieve for him and he’s thriving.
All of my children above the age of 10 except for one actively opposed moving. They really, really, really didn’t want to move. They loved living in RBS, they had friends and connections and a sense of belonging. My older three kids expected to be sporadic visitors with no sense of meaningful connection in our new community.
This was a move that none of them saw as benefiting them in any way. It would only make their lives more difficult, as two of our kids living at home would have to find somewhere else to live once we moved, and it would be a long trip whenever they came back home for a visit. A visit to a place where they didn’t want to be, didn’t belong and didn’t connect with.
Covid-19 changed everything for us.
First of all, I didn’t take anyone away from the life they loved by moving here. Corona regulations had already taken it all away before we moved. They couldn’t spend time with friends or participate in any of the activities they enjoyed. They couldn’t even go outside for a walk.
Moving became a solution rather than a problem.
We moved at the most beautiful time of year, with the most perfect weather, to the most beautiful part of the country. Even at the times with the most restrictions, we could be outside in our large yard and the younger kids could play in the fields next to the house.
There was so much to do once we moved, and that work was shared by everyone. This made our move so, so, so much easier, and also created a sense of involvement and connection to our new home.
Synagogues were closed when we moved and people were staying to themselves. My 21 year old son organized a minyan (prayer service) three times a day that met the quarantine guidelines – four of our family members prayed in our backyard, our next door neighbor prayed in his back yard, and the men in the two houses behind us prayed from their front yards and porches – everyone in their own space and at the same time, everyone together.
These were all people who usually would pray in different synagogues and not have mutual meeting points. Our older boys and my husband had a chance to meet neighbors they would have hardly seen otherwise. As the restrictions eased, the rest of us have gotten to know our immediate neighbors, too. It’s been over twenty years since I felt this connected to my neighbors – ironic, at a time of social distancing to feel so connected, isn’t it?
As a family, we have never had the level of relaxed connection and time together that we experienced during the last two months. Not even when I was homeschooling nine children at once. The time together was enhanced by the fact that there was nowhere else to be. This allowed everyone to relax and be present in the moment, without the urgency of needing/wanting to be somewhere else. It was a rare opportunity to us all to experience this inner quiet simultaneously for an extended period.
What do our children think about us moving now? Everything has been so much better than any of us expected. They not only like it a lot, but think it was a great decision to move here! That’s pretty amazing considering their feelings before we came.
In the last few weeks things have gradually been reopening and that’s a good thing. That’s a very, very good thing.
At the same time, I feel so wistful and almost sad that this time is ending. This has been an incredibly valuable and beautiful time that could not have been more perfectly scripted for our family. I hope we can find ways to continue to create this feeling as the busyness of life resumes.
As our older kids are starting to move out, it’s a comfort that this new place has become a place where they belong, a home where they’ll want to come back to.
Companion planting is such a fascinating concept! This is the term for when you plant various plants together that enhance the growth of another, provide pollination benefits or help resist pests.
Around each of my fruit trees, I planted flowers that will help repel harmful bugs while attracting beneficial insects. The flowers I’ve so far planted are marigolds, zinnias and petunias. All of these attract bees and butterflies, while repelling harmful insects. (I’m going to be interplanting these with my vegetable plants once they go in the ground, too.) There’s lots of fascinating information online about what chemicals they release in the air and in the roots, what insects they repel (and even what harmful insects they draw in).
Also in that same garden bed I’ve added four different gardenias, lavender and sage that are also great companion plants! I’m planning to add in some more green herbs, like parsley, basil and mint (which will have it’s own area since it spreads like a weed).
I’ve been composting heavily in the center of this bed, which is why I have so many more plants in the middle than around the edges. I’m working my way outward. All of these plants will hopefully spread and fill in with time and become much more lush.
If you’re doing some planting, however small, consider adding some companion plants that will make the birds and butterflies happy, while helping your main plant stay healthy!
